


Tactics

by Kyra_Bane



Series: Kinktober 2020 [The Old Guard] [14]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, F/M, Face-Sitting, Introspection, Joe and Nicky Think They're Helping, Kinktober, Kinktober 2020, Loud Sex, Mentioned Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Mentioned James Copley, Mentioned Quynh | Noriko, they are not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:35:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27198592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra_Bane/pseuds/Kyra_Bane
Summary: After Quynh’s return – and Booker’s subsequent release from exile – Nile finds she doesn’t exactly know how to deal. She’s not been an immortal that long; how is she supposed to cope with all life can throw at her?With her friends, of course, who are always there for her. And perhaps with the man she loves – so long as he understands why she’s putting the brakes on for a while.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Kinktober 2020 [The Old Guard] [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930153
Comments: 9
Kudos: 140





	Tactics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [highlightcity_159](https://archiveofourown.org/users/highlightcity_159/gifts).



> prompt 14 (!!!): loud sex/knowing someone can hear you
> 
> thanks to highlightcity159 for the pairing request, sorry this isn't strictly getting back and joe/nicky and that it took ages, and if it's 10000% more angsty than you imagined APPARENTLY i can't help myself (dw dw i'm already working on prompt 15 - also your request - so that one won't take too long 😅)
> 
> yeah this took four days to write for some reason??? kind of follows on from [Take the Risk](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26866252) but you don't have to read that to get this

Nile’s the one who set the newest boundary. She did it not long after Booker came back, after Quynh kidnapped him and forced him into the water and killed all of them (except Andy) and they all killed her back (except Andy, again). 

She’s seen Joe look as scared, in the years since meeting him, but there was something truly _haunted_ in his eyes when he realised what Quynh had been doing to Booker, and Nile felt the echo of it deep inside herself. She’d known, then, that he’d accept Booker back, regardless of the fact it hasn’t even been a decade since London, that there’s still so much to work on.

Nile cornered Booker the first night. He’d looked so small and tired and glad to see her and the others had gone to bed, exhausted, battle-weary, and so Nile had dropped into his lap and buried her face in his shoulder. She’d felt like she should comfort him but his arms had tightened around her and she doesn’t know, even now, how long they stayed like that.

It’s been eight years of friendship and hooking up and terrible, terrible fights as she’s adjusted to immortality and her family moving on without her and the understanding of the _weight_ of it all; as he’s slowly started to understand how he should move on, too, and she knows just loving her won’t fix him, as much as she’d like it to.

She’s still not said it. She’s refused to, not until they can all be in a room together, and then, after he’d held her, and she’d kissed him – because, otherwise, how was she to be sure he was real? – she laid out the plan she’d been working on in the back of her mind.

It’s as much to protect her as it is to protect him, as it is to protect everyone else. As she explained it all, his gaze a heavy, steady thing, she made it clear it wasn’t an _ending_. Just a… pause. Put the brakes on for a while.

She needed it. Needs it. She’s never wanted to kill anyone before, not really, but when she realised what Quynh had done to Booker, well– She’s never felt anger like that and she’s not too proud not to admit when she’s scared, even if it’s of herself.

So it’s been a couple of months, now. Andy’s off, somewhere, following Quynh wherever she’s going on her merry journey of destruction – although Copley’s got half an eye on her at all times, which means that they all do, too. 

Nile keeps making noises about Joe and Nicky going off on their own, but they seem stubbornly determined to stick with her and Booker, even though Joe still isn’t really speaking to him and Nicky is cooking too much and Booker is quiet in a way she’s never known him.

She feels cruel. She feels scared. She feels, mostly, overwhelmingly tired, and wonders if this is it: if she’s not even ten years in and just _done_ with the world and everyone in it.

Nicky finds her, one day, out on the porch of the little house they’re renting in a quiet Austrian village. It’s quaint and Nile likes it, even if she itches for noise, life. It’s early because of course she can’t sleep and Nicky always wakes early, anyway. 

He presses a cup of coffee into her hands, just the way she likes it, and she shuffles over on the bench they’ve got set out there. The nearest house isn’t super close but even if it was, Nile thinks everyone is still asleep.

She takes a sip of her coffee and Nicky says, “Have you and Booker broken up?” and she promptly spits it out again.

“What?”

Nicky doesn’t repeat the question. Instead, he just looks at her, until she rolls her eyes and turns back to staring out at the landscape.

“No,” she replies mulishly. “I just thought…”

“Hm?”

“I thought a break would be good for us.”

“Oh.” His tone is perfectly impassive and Nile burns with shame. She feels him look at her, and then he takes her hand. “You needed it,” he says and she looks up at him, surprised.

“What do you mean?”

“I have been trying to talk Joe around, these past few years. We all know Andy will die in battle before she lets death claim her… or, she would, before. I wanted Booker to have the chance to spend time with her before that. To have him spend time with _you_ , the way you should both be free to, without Andy’s spectre looming over us all.”

Nile’s throat suddenly feels tight. She doesn’t think Joe was wrong, honestly, to say no – after all, she thinks the likelihood of her welcoming Quynh with open arms is pretty fucking low, actually, and she doesn’t even know the woman – but she’s a little surprised Nicky has been pushing on this.

“I think he wanted to see some evidence that Booker had moved on from what had driven him to betray us.” Nicky sighs. “Do not mistake it: we have all felt that weariness of time, and it is somehow especially sharp at the beginning, when you have not quite had enough time to process the extent of it all. But Booker has been wallowing in it longer than most and for Joe, it is unforgivable that he would drag us into it, too.”

Nile hums in agreement. They’ve fought about that, too, her and Book. He doesn’t have any explanations that fit – not that she expects them to – and the one time he’d argued that it was unfair that Copley got to work with them and he was banished to wherever they weren’t, she’d truly lost her temper. 

Most of the anger is gone now, or is as settled as it can be. And she can see some of the change in him, even here. He’s dimming, though, the more time they spend together, and she can’t bring herself to break this new, less-tangible exile, not yet.

“I’ve never been that scared,” she says, which is true, but it’s not quite what she means and Nicky gives her a look that says he knows it. Because of course, he understands. How many times has Joe died in front of him and, oh, she can’t _believe_ she’s comparing them to Nicky and Joe, but there it is.

“Do what you need to keep your heart safe, Nile,” Nicky says, “But do not hide from him forever. Not if that starts hurting you more.”

He kisses her forehead and goes back into the house, presumably back to bed because Joe won’t get up for an hour or more. Nile takes a shaky breath, wipes the tears from her cheeks, and drinks the rest of her coffee, alone.

***

If Joe’s icy attitude seems to thaw towards Booker in the coming days, no one mentions it. Booker seems startled, the first time Joe asks him if he wants to watch soccer together, and there’s a moment where they’re both shouting at the TV that Nile’s breath catches in her throat. Nicky’s across the kitchen table from her, reading a book, and she’s supposed to be practising painting, and when he looks at her, his smile is there but it’s sad. 

Still, they don’t yell at each other, and dinner is nice, and Nile wants to climb into Booker’s lap, but they all go to bed at a reasonable hour.

The one advantage to Quynh being back is the lack of dreams of drowning over and over. Instead, Nile dreams about her family, which sucks because she’s always sad in the morning. Or she dreams about dying, which sucks because, well, duh. Or about Booker, and either it’s ridiculous, domestic fluff or the hottest wet dream ever and either way, it _sucks_ because she can’t _do_ anything about it.

A few days later, it’s just her and Booker hanging out in the living room. She’s sprawled across the couch, reading, and he’s in the armchair next to it. He’s watching something on the TV, some regional show that makes any and all German she’s picked up absolutely useless, and she’s stopped reading because she can’t stop staring at him.

It’s not like he looks any different. He’s relaxed, she notices, which isn’t his normal state, even here, and it makes her stomach twist uncomfortably. He’s smiling, faintly, at whatever’s being said, and she thinks of a time they met up in Paris, in his small, tidy apartment; she’d had a weekend free, then, and they’d spent the Sunday lying across each other on the couch, watching whatever was on. Nile hadn’t really understood all of it, but Booker had whispered translations into her ear and she remembers, now, thinking that she’d have been happy staying there for the rest of her life.

God, she’s been a shit girlfriend. And that’s what she is, she realises, since they’ve been exclusively having sex and dates and a romantic relationship with _each other_ for eight years.

“Book,” she says and he looks at her, instantly, like if she’d whispered he’d have heard it.

“Yes?”

She opens her mouth to speak again – just as an incredibly loud, incredibly _filthy_ moan comes from the direction of Joe and Nicky’s bedroom.

“Um.”

To her surprise, Booker chuckles. “Sorry,” he says. “I was surprised they held off for so long.”

She’s heard them before, of course, but they do usually try to be discreet about it if they know she’s around. There’s another moan, and another, and Nile’s sure she should be more composed than this but it definitely _doesn’t_ help that the one person she wants to climb like a goddamn tree is sitting all of three feet away from her, so she’s flustered.

“Want to get something to eat?” Booker asks, eyes flicking up to the clock like he’s not even noticed how it’s affecting her. “The bakery should still be open.”

“Yes, tesoro, just like that!” she hears and that’s _Nicky_ , fuck, she’s not sticking around for this.

“Yep, let’s go,” she says, all but racing for her shoes, and Booker laughs as he follows.

They make it to the bakery just before it closes, buy almond croissants, and eat them sitting by the river. Booker tells her about the last time he was in Austria – it’s a nice story and not one he’s told her before – and she tells him about the book she’s been reading. They walk back to the house before the sun goes down and Nile thinks it’s probably the best date she’s ever been on.

***

It happens three more times over the next two weeks. Nile can’t work out why they keep doing it. She even _tried_ to talk to Joe about it, the first time, but he waved her off – and she’d be more annoyed, except he looked so happy and that evening was the first without any of them being truly on edge.

She asks Nicky, after the second. 

“Are you guys having really loud sex so that Joe’ll be nicer to Booker?”

Joe’s out, grocery shopping. Booker’s in the shower. She can hear the water running, so this really awkward conversation she’s throwing herself into is going to be a nice distraction from thinking about how she wants to lick every drop of water from Booker’s body.

Nicky snorts. “No.” 

She raises an eyebrow.

“Mostly not. I am sorry, if we have been disturbing you.” He clears his throat. “It is sometimes… what is needed. But we can check into the guest house in the village, if that is more comfortable?”

“No,” she says and regrets that decision after the fourth time she and Booker hear them having sex.

They’ve both stayed up late; she’s finally convinced them all that having Netflix is a basic necessity _and_ she’s convinced Booker to watch a horror film with her. Nothing too serious or related to any recent injuries; some horror comedy thing, but they’re sitting together on the couch, which is a nice step up.

She’s thinking of what she’s going to say to him, when the movie ends. She feels a little better in herself, now. She can look at him and not imagine him drowning, the way she felt Quynh drown over and over, and she should have been there for him, but she _has_ been, she thinks.

She’s chewing on her lip, thinking it over, when he reaches out and touches the back of her hand. He’s looking at her and his expression is concerned. “What are you worrying about?” he asks and gestures at the TV. “Nothing bad has happened yet.”

It’s enough to startle a laugh out of her. They’re still in the opening minutes of the film so he’s right, nothing’s happened, and she really should just say something because if she doesn’t do it now, she doesn’t know when–

Joe moans from the other room and Nile growls a curse. Somehow, that’s the thing to make Booker laugh and she smacks him on the arm.

“It’s really annoying they keep doing it!” Nile says. “We can’t even go out right now!”

“I assume they think we are both sleeping.”

Nile looks at him. “Okay, who’s sleeping through that, first of all? Second of all, you’re telling me they can’t hear the TV?”

“We could turn it up?” 

Nile sighs, flopping back against the couch again. She closes her eyes. “No,” she sighs. “We’ll make Joe watch it, tomorrow.”

Possibly her favourite thing about Joe is that he’s never quite gotten used to horror films. He’s never been interested, he told her, but all that means is that every jump scare startles him and it seems like a pretty fitting way to get her revenge.

When she opens her eyes again, Booker’s looking at her. There’s enough noise coming from the other room, from the TV, but for a second she doesn’t hear anything over the rush of blood in her ears. He’s looking at her like he _wants_ her and she’s well-acquainted with that expression, where it could lead.

For a second, she imagines lifting her head, baring the line of her throat; he knows her well enough to read it as a cue, and she wonders where he would go first. He’d probably kiss her. Would probably slide to his knees and…

The movie’s music suddenly jumps up in volume and Nile breaks eye contact first. She sits up, because they really need to talk about this before they do anything else, except when she looks back at him, he’s looking away.

“Book–”

“I’m going to bed,” he says. He looks back at her again and smiles, but it’s clearly forced and Nile feels dread settle in her stomach. “You’re right, we should watch it tomorrow. Good night.”

He all but runs from the room and Nile curses herself – and then Joe and Nicky for good measure – before she turns off the TV and heads for bed too.

***

She almost yells at Joe the next day. He has the sense to take her outside when she starts snapping at him in the morning, and they spar for a little while, half-heartedly, until he knocks her on her ass and she tries to tackle him.

He knocks her to the ground again. It’s not always this easy for him, and his expression says he knows it.

“What’s going on with you?” he asks. He doesn’t offer to help her up – a smart move, because she’d definitely pull him down to the ground alongside her.

“What do you mean, what’s going on with me?” 

“I mean, are you going to deal with Booker or not?”

Nile scoffs. “Are you?”

“I have.”

“What?”

Joe shrugs. “We talked about it, a few days ago. When you and Nicky went into the village. He’s not– I don’t _trust_ him, not completely, but we can work on that. You know I was always glad he was back, Nile. At least he’s safe here.”

“Physically,” Nile mutters.

“What, because you have been stringing him along for weeks?”

“I…” She growls and gets to her feet. “What am I supposed to do? Choose between him and the rest of you? That was all the choice I had before Quynh came back!”

Any reminder of Quynh usually stops Joe and Nicky in their tracks, but this time it doesn’t appear to faze Joe in the slightest.

“Not seeing us all together did not mean you could not _see_ us, Nile. And what did you want us to do, forgive his betrayal like that? Because you had fallen in love with him?”

Nile’s cheeks burn. She glances toward the window but, luckily, there’s no one there. “Fuck, Joe,” she says. “I don’t know what to do about _any_ of this, okay? How am I supposed to deal with this?” 

She’s so young, compared to the rest of them, and yet she’s going to live so long; and she can’t, obviously, resent them for how she joined them, but _God_ , she’d just died for the first time and then they were betrayed so painfully - they were in the middle of being betrayed, even, when they found her, by the man she's gone and fallen in love with - and they all found out Andy, ever-present, ever-steady Andy, would be taken from them so soon and she loves Booker, she does, but they hurt each other and she doesn’t see how it can last one thousand years because how could anything except the proof of that is in front of her and…

Joe wraps his arms around her, slowly, and she sobs into his shoulder. 

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” he asks, when she’s finally gone quiet.

She doesn’t lift her head. “I don’t think I noticed it before,” she says. “But I thought– I knew he was alive, but I thought I’d _lost_ him, anyway. I don’t know how to handle that. How do you?”

Joe hums. His fingers are tapping out a melody on her back as he thinks about it. “I do not know that I do,” he replies. “But Nicky knows how to take care of me and I know how to take care of him. That’s really the point, isn’t it?”

She does look up, at that. It’s not the answer to everything, of course; she’s still hurting about Andy and this hasn’t even _solved_ the issue she’s got, but Joe smiles at her, tentatively, and she does her best to return it.

“You’ve got to cool it with the sex though,” she says. “At least, let me talk to him first.”

Joe huffs. “You would be better dragging him into your bedroom,” he replies. “You are both very good warriors who are very, very scared of their feelings.”

Nile opens her mouth to retort, but Joe shakes his head. “We have all been there,” he says and when he lets her go, Nile laughs.

“So how long did it take you, genius?”

Joe shrugs, and this time, his grin is wide. “Oh, only half a century or so, but who’s counting?”

***

Nile doesn’t talk to Booker that night. They’re all on eggshells around her, a little bit, so she supposes that Joe told Nicky – not that she’d expect any less. 

Booker can probably read it from her expression. He sits on the floor by her chair, when they’re watching TV after, and she wants to reach out and touch his hair.

No. 

They have to talk first.

Right?

They definitely should, but–

But, she thinks about it for too long and then Joe and Nicky are heading off to bed and Booker’s standing too and, well, it can wait until tomorrow.

She stares up at the ceiling for hours, trying to work out why she’s putting off a conversation that should be easy, and realises it’s because she’s scared he’ll have realised he’s better off without her. He needs someone who can be there for him, through everything.

Is she enough?

Nile sleeps fitfully and wakes early. Only, she’s surprised to hear someone else shuffling about in the house. It’s getting colder, the weather about to turn, so she pulls on a robe before she leaves her bedroom. 

After visiting the bathroom – and feeling a little more awake – she makes her way through to the kitchen. She’s expecting to see Nicky, so when she sees Booker, looking as tired as she feels, she stops in the doorway.

He turns, sees her, and stops as well.

There’s no reason for the air between them to be heavier than it has been any other day; after all, they’ve spent enough time alone together, but now Nile feels like she can taste it. He’s not been awake long, looking sleep-warm, his hair still mussed, and she remembers waking up beside him over and over and–

A moan breaks the silence and Nile wants to scream. They _have_ to be doing it on purpose, right? Except, she can’t work out if they’re taunting her – why would they – or… well, what else could it be?

When she looks up, Booker’s turned back to the coffee machine. “I take it you want one,” he says, mildly, like he can’t hear the way the bed is banging against the wall somewhere else in this very small house. 

Somehow that only annoys her more.

“No, I don’t,” she says, snaps, and he’s surprised when he looks at her. She thinks they really should talk about everything, that she really needs to apologise and tell him they’re in this together and she loves him and God, maybe that’s why she didn’t want to choose because she might not have chosen the rest of them and leaving Andy feels almost sacrilegious at this point, _but._

But.

But she stalks over to him and he sets down his mug and his posture is easy, open, like he’s known all along that she’d come back to him, like he’s been waiting patiently, and when she grabs the fabric of his shirt, he lets out a quiet sigh.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” she says, almost desperately. She can’t hear the others anymore because all she’s doing is listening for his answer. Nile needs him to tell her no. She needs him to push her away like she’s done to him.

He closes his hands around her wrists and he’s so gentle, in comparison. “I could never,” he says, and she makes a wounded sound but doesn’t let go. “It does not mean we do not need to talk about all this. But I think it can wait.”

Okay, maybe that’s what she needs to hear. She leans up to kiss him and his mouth opens under hers; he shudders when she slides her tongue alongside his. His hands don’t move, at first, and he’s leaning back against the countertop, but Nile doesn’t let up. She hasn’t been this close to him in weeks, hasn’t kissed him since the night they finally got him away from Quynh and safely back here. She doesn’t want to stop.

They still need to breathe, so she pulls back, but their mouths are still close, almost touching. Booker lets go of her wrists and strokes his hands down her sides, over the robe. “Tu m’as manqué,” he murmurs and she almost wants to cry.

Except, he kisses her, and it’s soft but full of intent. Nile finally forces herself to let go of his shirt and, instead, puts her hands on his shoulders. His arms tighten around her waist. When she slides her leg between his, her thigh pressing against him, he stops kissing her to take a deep breath. 

“No?” she asks and she’s already letting go of his shoulders but he pulls her, somehow, impossibly closer. She can’t feel his touch properly, not through the layers of her pyjamas and robe, but she knows his grip on her has tightened. 

He doesn’t want her to go. He _wants_ her and maybe she shouldn’t be surprised by that, after eight years, but of course she is.

“Take me to your bed,” he says and fuck, Nile could just melt. She nods – she has nothing to say to that – and steps back, takes one of his hands. He smiles down at her and his grip is firm. 

Nile leads him through the house, and Nicky and Joe are still at it nearby, louder as they reach the bedrooms, but Nile doesn’t really notice that over the thump of her own heart in her chest. Booker’s rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand and it shouldn’t be as distracting as it is. She opens the door and leads him inside; only when the door is shut does she let go.

He stands there, for a moment, looking around. There’s nothing particularly _her_ about this room, in this safehouse; one that she’d never seen until they turned up at it in the middle of the night. Still, his eyes alight on the book she’s been reading, on the scattering of hair products on top of the dresser. 

Nile shrugs off her robe and Booker’s gaze is immediately drawn back to her. He smiles and sits on the bed and when Nile takes off her pyjama top, she curses at the cool air.

He laughs. “We can always get _in_ the bed,” he says but she shakes her head. She takes off her pyjama pants, too, and climbs into his lap, and there’s something so tantalising about being completely naked while he’s still clothed.

They kiss and Booker’s hands wander, solid on her thighs, over her ass. Nile kisses Booker’s jaw, down his throat, and when he lets out a moan, hips bucking up, she hears the room across from them has gone silent.

“You think they…?” she asks.

“Heard?” Booker’s eyes are twinkling. “Yes.”

Nile thinks she ought to feel conflicted about that. After all, they still have all the talking to do, all the honesty and negotiating and airing out hurt feelings. But she knows already she won’t let him go. She has to trust he thinks the same, or he wouldn’t be in her bed right now.

“Okay,” she replies, and he laughs, which turns into a moan when she sucks a mark onto his throat. 

She wants to mark him all over – not a new compulsion – and as she’s sucking another underneath the first, which is already fading, she feels his fingers on the inside of her thigh, and then they’re sliding over her clit.

Nile grabs his wrist and he stills instantly. She reassures him with a kiss, even as she pulls his hand back.

“Later,” she says. “I want to hear you first.”

He growls at that and she leans back so, between them, they can get his shirt off. His pants she can worry about later; for now, she kisses down his throat again, over his chest, sliding her hand through his sparse chest hair. She bites one nipple and he gasps, hips twitching up. The other, she rolls between her fingers and she can feel the tension in him as he does his best to keep still. 

Except, that’s not really what she wants, either, so she bites him again before she lifts her head. “I said I want to hear you,” she says, and watches his eyes go dark. He nods and she squeezes his cock through his pants and he moans, loudly. 

“Thank you,” she says, just to see him blush, and then she’s travelling lower, peppering kisses over his stomach. 

He said he missed her – she’s missed him, too; not just the companionship, not just because they’re in love, but also _this_ , the way he comes apart underneath her touch. She’s not even on her knees and he’s already spreading his legs, trusting that she’ll take care of him. And she will. They’ve played around in the past, different games they’ve both enjoyed, but that’s not what today is about.

She hooks her fingers into the top of his sweatpants and he lifts his hips. Slowly, she pulls them down and when his cock springs free, hard and red and already leaking, Nile’s mouth waters. She wants to taste him, so once she has Booker’s sweatpants off, tossed aside, she does, licking a long stripe from root to tip.

Booker _whines_ , clutching at the sheets, and shakes his head. “Nile, ma chérie, you do not have to…”

“I want to,” she says and he nods, even as she takes the head of his cock into her mouth. She sucks, gently, and he moans, but does an admirable job of keeping his hips still.

She doesn’t think she’d mind if he pushed up into her mouth – and sometimes that’s been something she _wants_ , but he’s always far too polite for that. So, instead, she takes as much of him as she can manage, which is basically all of him now, holding herself close where she can nose at his curls. Booker’s thighs are tense, muscles taut, and Nile scrapes her nails over his skin as she lifts up again, pressing her tongue against the underside of his cock.

“Nile,” Booker bites out, as she does it again, takes him deep and slow and sucks hard. Her jaw is starting to ache and when she flicks her eyes up, he’s flushed and his pupils are blown so dark she can only see a small ring of colour. She pulls off entirely, strokes him instead.

“I want you to come in my mouth,” she says because they’re going to have to be even more honest with each other, in future, so they might as well start here.

Booker lets out a strangled noise, rubbing his hand over his face as he recovers. His cock is hard and hot in Nile’s grip. “Alright,” he says, and seems to understand what she’s doing. “Then you’re going to sit on my face.” 

Ah, _fuck_. He’s never exactly been shy about telling her what he wants but he’s always been more than willing to defer to her – and she knows, looking at him, that he’s asking this for her, because he wants her to come and he knows she loves it, but he’s asking it for himself, too. 

She wants to touch herself, ease the sudden aching pressure between her legs, but she doesn’t. “Alright,” she says instead, lips twitching, and Booker laughs before she licks his cock again. She strokes him, licks over the slit, sucks gently on the head, and then takes him all in again because she really, _really_ wants to hear him, Joe and Nicky be damned.

He’s close now, despite their brief exchange – or, in fact, because of it? Nile fondles his balls in one hand, keeping the other on his thigh. Booker groans when she squeezes, and then again when she slides her fingers further back, pushing against his perineum before she skates over his hole. 

“Fuck, Nile,” he whines, before trailing off into almost incomprehensible French. Nile takes him deep, pushing her fingers against him. She doesn’t want to press inside, not dry, not without talking about this, but she knows how much he likes it – he begged her to rim him once, had come on her tongue and her fingers and it has to be one of the hottest things she’s ever seen.

It’s still hot now; he can’t stop the small movements of his hips anymore and she doesn’t try to make him. Instead, she pulls off a little, uses her hand on the base of him to give him more room to move. He’s got his eyes closed and Nile sucks a little harder, can feel his hole fluttering, trying to give way. 

She shifts, replacing her fingers with her thumb. Her hand on his cock is fastened in a tight grip and his skin is slick from her mouth and his pre-come. All she can taste is him, and her jaw aches and her knees hurt a little, even on the carpeted floor, but she can’t think about anything beyond how much she wants him to come.

He grabs the sheets, suddenly, more than warning enough, and groans when his orgasm hits. Nile moans at the burst of it on her tongue, swallows all that she can. She doesn’t let go until he’s done, until he reaches for her with shaking hands.

Booker does his best to pull her up and Nile crawls over him, ducks her head for a kiss. He’s still breathing hard but sweeps his tongue through her mouth like he’s trying to taste himself and Nile can’t help it, she reaches down and slides a finger through her folds.

She’s so wet; her breath hitches and Booker pulls back from the kiss, raising an eyebrow when he sees what she’s doing. “Impatient,” he says and she laughs.

“How could I not be?” she replies.

He snorts and pulls her hand away, sucks her fingers into his mouth. Nile groans. His other hand wanders up her leg, between her thighs, and when he sinks two fingers into her, he meets no resistance. Nile cries out, pushing her hips back. She can come from this; it won’t take long–

Booker slides his fingers free and reaches for her hips. “You know what I want, chérie.” 

How could she deny him? It’s not as though it is a hardship, anyway; she shuffles up the bed until her knees are either side of his head and lowers herself slowly until she feels his tongue swipe along her. She’s not quiet in bed but she’s never been _loud_ ; still, she moans and his grip on her legs tightens. Oh, he likes it, she realises, and she closes her eyes, groans when he pushes his tongue inside her, moans when he sucks on her clit. 

He presses his fingertips into her ass cheeks, encouraging her to grind against him, and she does, and she can’t help herself, because even though she can’t see him blush, she knows she can make it happen. “You’re so good at this Booker,” she babbles, “ So good to me, baby, always taking care of me…” She cuts herself off before she says something about not being good at that, herself, that she’s failed in taking care of both of them, but Booker pinches her thigh and she looks down, meeting his gaze. 

“You’re amazing,” she murmurs, reaching to tug on his hair, and his eyes flutter closed even as she keeps grinding against him. He’s got two fingers inside her again, sucking on her clit, and when he rubs against her, inside, she comes with a shout, whole body shuddering through it.

“Fuck,” she says, pitching off him to one side and Booker laughs, turning to snatch up his shirt so he can wipe off his face. He crawls over to her and they kiss and Nile can almost forget about the last few weeks because he’s in her bed and they’ve both just come and she _loves_ him…

She does. Love him. And he deserves to hear her say it, but when she pulls back, he shakes his head.

“Sleep, first,” he says.

“You’re not going?”

He frowns at her, shakes his head. “Of course not,” he says. He yawns, suddenly, and Nile laughs. “But we both need sleep. Especially after all that… activity.”

They shuffle around to get under the covers and then settle, Niles face against Booker’s chest, Booker’s arm around her waist. She realises, just before she drops off, that she hasn’t heard a peep from Joe or Nicky in a while.

Oh, well. 

Maybe they’ve had to leave the house for a change.

***

Nile wakes a few hours later. She knows, instantly, that Booker’s awake too; his breathing is steady but not especially deep, though he’s lying still. He still has an arm around her, too, and their legs have tangled together at some point. 

She pushes herself up and Booker smiles at her. Nile kisses him, erring just this side of desperate, and he cups her cheek, slows her down.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, when they part.

“I’m sorry,” she replies. “For suggesting we stop this, even for a while. I should have been there for you, I should have…”

Booker’s frowning, looking almost confused. “You were there,” he says.

“No. No, I wasn’t. I just, I got scared, because she _killed_ you and I wanted to kill her and I don’t know what to do about that.”

She looks down at the sheets, plucks at them to keep her hands busy. Booker sighs.

“Nile, I love you,” he says and she whips her head up to look at him again.

“You…?”

“It cannot be a surprise, mon coeur. I’ve been in love with you for years.”

“But you never said!”

“Neither did you,” he says, pointedly, and Nile bites her lip. “Did you think I did not know?”

She shrugs. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to… We said we wouldn’t get feelings involved.”

“The final lie we told each other,” Booker says and smiles faintly. “Do you know why I didn’t tell you?”

Nile shakes her head. 

“Because I knew you would feel forced to choose. I’ve seen Andy a few times over the years, you know. Nicky came to visit… two years ago, I think. After we had our last big fight. Do you think for a second that if you had told them you were leaving to come and–” He cuts himself off for a moment, looks up at the ceiling before he looks back at her. “Whatever we decided. Do you think they would refuse to see you, too?”

“I didn’t know. And I couldn’t… All of you are all I have left and I do love you Book, I do, but Andy is–”

“Andy is mortal, yes.” He sighs. “I think, perhaps, Nicky or I should have talked to you about this all sooner. I need a century to learn to live with myself but I do not think for a second they would begrudge me seeing Andy, when the time comes.” 

Nile rubs a hand over her face. “So you knew all along it wasn’t serious?”

“No. Until we fell into our relationship, I knew I would probably be allowed to see Andy one final time, but I knew Joe would not go back on his word.”

“So I changed things?”

“You changed _me._ ” He takes her chin in his hand, tilts it up so she meets his gaze. “I have spent two centuries protecting my heart, Nile. Two centuries convinced I could never love again – as far as I was concerned, Joe and Nicky had their great immortal loves and Andy had lost her own; my misfortune had been that I had been chosen for this and my wife had not. But we forget how resilient our hearts can be and mine was determined to love you.”

Nile swallows around a lump in her throat. She attempts a smile, as she says, “Sounds like you didn’t have much say in it.”

Booker laughs because _of course_ he does, because he knows her better than anyone else in the world. “Ah, perhaps not,” he says, “But then I wonder how anyone else does? How could anyone meet you and not fall in love with you?”

“Booker,” Nile warns, and he lets her chin go, his smile light and wide. She reaches out, rests her hand on his arm. “You haven’t changed just because you love me.”

“No,” he agrees. “I saw the way you fit with them, too. The way you returned for us, at the lab; I think I was less surprised when I came back to life the first time. You fit with them in a way I never have because you think, constantly, of so much more than yourself. I didn’t know how to be the newest, youngest immortal and they did not know how to teach _me._ You have taught them a lot too, I think.”

Nile bites her lip. “I don’t always think of more than myself,” she says. “I was scared when we found you and Quynh. I’ve never loved anyone so much I’d kill for them before. I don’t know if I should.”

“I would never insist you do,” Booker says. He shakes his head. “I would like to say it will ease, but then I have seen Joe and Nicky fight. We are not ordinary people, Nile – and I do not mean that we cannot stay dead. I mean, simply, that we are more likely to die. But if it is a problem…”

“Hm?”

He shrugs. “I doubt I shall be joining you all on any missions for a while. Joe still does not trust me, and he is right not to. I do not trust myself to protect you all.”

“What will you do?”

“If I am still welcome, I will stay nearby. I will be there, when you get back, to help you wash the blood and the anger away, and I will do whatever it takes to keep you happy and whole.”

Nile’s breath catches in her throat. The tone has been serious all along, but this feels especially so; it feels as though the room is shifting around her, like she’s taking a step into a new stage of her life.

“You’re going to be stuck with me.” She moves her hand up his arm, traces her fingers down his chest. “I’ll do the same for you, too. Even if I’ve not managed it well so far…”

“No promises,” Booker says, a reminder, but Nile shakes her head.

“No, I’m promising you this,” she says. “That I will always _try_. I might not get it right and we’re probably gonna argue a lot and we still have to deal with all the others but… I promise I’ll do my best to take care of you.”

Booker kisses her. His hand curls around the back of her neck and the breath’s knocked out of her by the force of it but she melts into him anyway. He pulls back and rests their foreheads together. 

“Je t’aime, Nile,” he breathes and she finally lets herself feel it; the giddiness and the excitement curl through her. He loves her! He truly, actually loves her – and, most importantly, she loves him back.

“I love you, too,” she replies.

Booker smiles and she thinks, for the second time that day, that he looks just like she feels.


End file.
